[DAD]

According to a post on Dave Darland's face book page Ralph Potter has passed away.

Ralph was a true innovator in racing. Starting his career in racing back in the 50's while working for his father who owned a speed shop in Indianapolis. One of his first experiences in racing was running for land speed records at the Bonneville salt flats with his friend Mickey Thompson . In those years he was better known as "Sonny" Potter being a Jr. He returned to Indy and opened one of the first Muffler Shops in the United states. For recognition Ralph installed a giant statue in front of his 16th street store. He named him "Mr. Bendo" and Mr Bendo became a nationally known Hero in his own right. To keep his crew busy in the winter Ralph began building and racing Quarter Midgets. He was the East Coast distributor for Frank Kurtis Quarter Midgets. When Frank got out of the Quarter Midget Business Ralph took on the brand and began developing Quarter Midgets of his own design. It would be impossible to count the number of great race car drivers that started their career either in racing a Kurtis Quarter Midget built by Ralph or as one of his house car drivers a very prestigious position for a young kid .

One of his more ingenious designs for Quarter Midgets was a car he called "Sidewinder" He placed the motor to the left of the driver and had a special gear box designed to work with the car. This was in the early 1960's and way ahead of the curve. QMA the sanctioning body for Quarter Midgets did not know how to respond to such a race car. For several years the Sidewinder was the class of the field. It was eventually banned because there was no way to get the fuel to travel left to the carburetor from the tale of the car. At the time pumper carburetors were available but the rule makers felt that they were fuel injection and disallowed them.

Looking back Ralph's "Sidewinder" was the fore-bearer to the Modern 600cc Micro Sprint of today. As his boys got older Ralph began building Full Midgets of his own design and racing them at Kitley Ave. Speedroom and was very successful with his sons as drivers. As time went by his Muffler Business continued to grow and Ralph opened shops for his sons to operate for him. Their lives also went on and they retired from driving. They did however still help Ralph race his Midgets.

Some of the many drivers to race for Ralph Besides his sons Tracy, Bryan, Kevin, and David were Dave Darland, Tony Elliot, Poncho Carter, Sleepy Tripp, Ed Carpenter, Dave Blaney (who Won the Chili Bowl for Ralph), Johny Heidenreich, Sammy Swindell, Steve Kinser, Mike Bliss, Tracey Hines and Tony Stewart who won his first USAC Midget Championships driving one of Ralphs #6 Midgets powered by a potent "Potter V6" Chevy motor that Ralph designed from the ground up to become the motor to beat in USAC Midget racing. When rules were made to take the advantage away from the mighty little V6 Ralph slowed down a little and designed and built a Silver Crown car with help from frend John Godfrey and campaigned it for several years winning a hundred mile race at Knoxville Iowa with Jay Drake as his driver. Ralph's younger son Kurtis went on to become a championship Go Kart racer in Indiana.

Ralph was a Racers Racer. He had friends all through the racing Industry and helped many many racers either starting out or moving up and on. I am proud to have called Ralph a friend, I can't count all the things he did for me through out the years or things he taught me on how to be successful in business as well as in life. He was a man of few words to the point of being considered quite. He never was one to brag of his accomplishments or put on airs, he was sure of himself and did not feel compelled to have to impress anyone. When Ralph was at a race track however everyone knew he was there.

I Truly will miss Ralph Potter and I know there are many others that feel the same way.

Rest in Peace Ralph, you leave behind a great legacy.

Bill Jones